It May Get Dry Yet?Don't Give Up Hope - Albuquerque Soccer League

Page 40ASL News in Brief and Useful InfoASL NewsOffice EtiquetteA few helpful pointers for you in dealingwith the ASL office. Our official businesshours are 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondaythrough Thursday. That’s when Ann isin the office. Sometimes Ann gets sick.Yes, we know FIFA’s Laws of the Gamedon’t allow this unless YOU happened tohave been out late Saturday night andelect to skip your game. However, thebackup employee doesn’t exist, so ifshe’s sick, we try to get somethingposted on the door and e-mailed asquickly as we can.We are open on Thursday evening from5:30 to 6:30 if Mike or Billy can make it,which they usually do. We are open onSaturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. duringthe regular season. Which means likelynot in November, December and January.Again we’re doing that in our sparetime and on a few occasions have managedto have everyone unavailable atonce, so call before you go to make surewe’re open.If someone is standing in the office at thecounter, we take care of them first. Ifyou call on the phone and no one answersit, that could be because someoneis there in person and our staff of one istaking care of them. In addition, everyonewho participates in opening andstaffing the office knows how to telltime. Therefore, when you call at 11a.m. and our 24/7 operator doesn’t immediatelyanswer your call, please don’ttell us what time it is and that the officeis supposed to be open. We alreadyknow that. Leave a message and someonewill call you back as quickly as theycan. When you’re the person standing inthe office, you likely will appreciate thisapproach, also.As an aside, we check the aslsoc@swcp.come-mail at least twice aday. This is a pretty fast way to get yourquestions answered and can be takencare of regardless of who’s out of town.Notice of A&D HearingsIf your team is on the hook for any possibleprotests in any given week, we willknow by close of business Wednesdaywhether there will be hearing on Saturday.Therefore, Ann will call the phonenumber we have for the team rep to advisewhether your team needs to sendsomeone over and whether there is ahearing. That means we need a currentphone number for you. That keeps youfrom wasting a trip if we don’t have anyprotests.Televised soccer….We’re purchasing and loaning out soccervideos at the office. There’s no chargeto rent them, since that would be illegal,but we require that you leave a $10 depositso we can replace them if you disappear.You can come pick them upduring regular office hours and we’d bevery grateful if you’d return them in atimely manner. We’re also adding aDVD collection through a deal withReedswain, who distributes most of thevideos we have on hand.Loaner JerseysWe’ve upgraded the process for usingalternate jerseys if you have a colorproblem in your games. In the past wegave you a bag full of pinnies. We havepurchased five sets of numbered shirts ina deal with SCORE that are available foryou to use. There are 18 numberedshirts in each bag and we got at least oneset each in purple and orange, since thatcolor never conflicts. They can besigned out AND RETURNED CLEANat the office. This should make your lifea little easier. So check the colors in theteam listing now to see if you need them.How Do We Make Sure weHave an End ofSeason Tournament?We actually complete the entry form andsubmit it to the league office. This astonishingprocess seemed to actuallywork for the spring State Cup. If youcall the office to see who has entered inyour division, you may be one of 8 peoplemaking a similar call. Which meansif 8 people call from the same divisionand none of them wants to be the first toenter, we could have had an 8 team divisionand no one could be bothered to bethe first one to enter. If you want tohave tournaments, you have to send usthat signal by entering, not by calling onthe phone. In addition, we have nowopened up the Fall Classic and the summertournaments to out of state teams. Itmay take a while to build that base up,but we will begin advertising those tournamentsin Texas, Oklahoma, Arizona,Colorado, and beyond. The idea if tobring in new people for you to kick.Hopefully, they’ll actually send in theirentries and not just call. The State Cupwill remain open only to NMSSA registeredteams.Congratulation to A-1 Pools!!!!Congratulations to the summer A-1Pools team for their outstanding showingin the regional finals competition of theCopa Tecate, staged in Sacramento.Sponsored nationally by the Tecate beercompany, the Copa Tecate attracts over2,700 top teams with 50,000 participantsfrom across the country and starts at thelocal league level, then progresses tointerstate play before some poor teammanager actually has to try to get a fullteam on an airplane for the national finals.Our local boys performed at theirbest yet, making it into the championshipround before falling victim to a poorlyconstructed schedule that resulted in twomany games with too little time, finallycoming out in fourth place. The NationalFinals are August 26 at Pizza HutPark in Dallas between El Nacionalefrom Chicago and D. Jerez from SanJose.